Anna Abner's Blog, page 48
March 26, 2013
Tuesday Tease #7
“How old are you?” David blurted out.
“I’ll be fifteen in a month,” Emi said, narrowing her eyes at him. “So, what did you find?”
“Okay.” Truth time. David inhaled deeply and then dove in and swam. “I’m a necromancer. I communicate with spirits. Ghosts,” he clarified. “And I have been hanging out—No that sounds stupid. I’ve been talking to your brother quite a bit. He’s been helping me with some spells. But what he really wants to do is talk to you.”
Emi rolled her large, expressive eyes. “Nice try, but my mom is the one you want. She’ll write a check to anyone who says they can talk to Tony.”
Spell of Binding ms pg. 158
March 25, 2013
Interview With Big Bad Bite Author Jessie Lane
Author Bio:
Jessie Lane is the writing team of Melissa Pahl and Crystal Leo. The two sisters-in-law share a passionate love of naughty romance, cliff hanging suspense, and out-of-this-world characters that demand your attention, or threaten to slap you around until you do pay attention to them. Because really, it is ALL about the characters.
Crystal and Melissa often live half their lives with their heads in the clouds dreaming of alpha military hunks, werewolves, and kick ass heroines.
Their first YA novel, The Burning Star, was released in May 2012. Big Bad Bite is their second novel, but their first adult paranormal romance, and it was released in January 2013. They are now working on their next three novels, Secret Maneuvers, Walk On The Striped Side, and The Frozen Star. With these projects underway, they are looking forward to showing the rest of the world the crazy stories, heroes, and heroines that often plague their minds until written, and hope you will join them on their journey!
Anna Abner: First, thank you for stopping by to talk about your paranormal novels The Burning Star and The Big Bad Bite. Can you start by telling us how you write as a team?
Crystal Leo: Melissa and I realized a long time ago that we feed off of each other’s creativity. Others might have a hard time writing with someone else, but the two of us are so alike that it doesn’t bother us at all. In fact, it’s common for one of us to pick up the phone when we’re stuck on a sentence or an idea and the other is able to know exactly where we were going with the idea and help get the ‘stuckee’ subsequently ‘unstuck’. That’s very much how the partnership began. I called Melissa to complain about what I was stuck on and she walked me right through all of the problems I had. That’s when I realized that we were on to something. So, the process between us is simple. One of us starts the story and the other adds to it and polishes it. That technique works very well for us.
AA: You’ve written both, but do you prefer writing young adult over more adult stories?
CL: I would have to say that Melissa and I feel like we can be more of ourselves in the adult genres. With the young adult genre we constantly straddle a line between what we want to write and trying to be respectful of what parents would want their children to read. So personally, I try to think in terms of, ‘Would I let my daughters read this if they were 15 or 16?’ That question usually helps me through the books. That isn’t to say that some parents still won’t have issues with some of the things we write, but we do have to be true to ourselves as writers.
AA: I loved Burning Star, book one in the Star Series. What do you have planned for future stories in the series?
Melissa Pahl: Thank you, and we’re happy you loved it! We don’t want to spoil too much, but book two, The Frozen Star, is in the works. Our goal is to release it by the end of this year. What I can tell you is that this book will focus on Kira’s journey into her new life and how everyone is working together to rescue Kay.
AA: The heroine in Burning Star has cancer. What made you decide to give Kay a terminal disease?
CL: This book was inspired by a very crazy dream I had one night. (My husband blames the Mexican food I ate, but we’ll just ignore him.) So in my dream I saw a very sick girl. When I started writing Kay’s story I chose cancer because I was hoping to shed light (and perhaps give a little bit of fantastical hope) to those kids that do suffer from cancer. Cancer runs in my family in many forms, and it’s a very hard thing to deal with. I look forward to a day where it does not exist anymore.
Anyone interested in finding out how they can help the cause of fighting cancer should check out St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and The American Cancer Society.
AA: In your novels you write about werewolves, faeries, witches, seers, and spells. Where do you draw your inspiration from?
MP: Our imaginations are always running wild. Plus, we read a lot. I personally have too many books and encyclopedias about everything ranging from mythology to the creepy paranormal. My husband started this addiction of mine with a book on Egyptian mythology and continues to feed the habit, so to speak.
AA: You mentioned encyclopedias. How much research is involved in your writing?
MP: I think we over research sometimes, which often makes for interesting emails and phone calls to one another. They normally end up with one of us laughing hysterically and spitting coffee on our computer screen.
AA: Who are your favorite authors to read in your down time?
MP: Shelly Laurensten, Kristen Ashley, Cassandra Clare, Jo Davis, Shayla Black…um I read a lot and so does Crystal. I think we will have an endless list if we keep going. Lol.
AA: When did you know you were a writer?
MP: Honestly, I’m not sure exactly when I knew, but when I was a teenager I was always writing in my journal. It was bits and pieces of quotes and poems or even lyrics that meant something. I actually still have all those books…Might need to look in them for motivation for when I get writers block.
AA: Sounds interesting! What advice would you give to struggling writers just starting out?
MP: Don’t let the negativity get you down. Not everyone will like what you write. Take the criticism with a grain of salt and learn from it. But most of all, you wrote it so be proud of it. Remember, you are a writer and no one can take that from you.
AA: What can you tell us about your upcoming projects?
CL: *rubs hands together in glee* We’ve got a lot of exciting things going on right now! Last January we released our first adult paranormal book, Big Bad Bite. It’s made a few of the Kindle bestseller categories on Amazon. That was seriously exciting! We have our first adult contemporary romance, Secret Maneuvers, scheduled to release June 15, 2013. Make sure you put it on your Goodreads ‘to-read’ list! At the end of this year readers can look for The Frozen Star (book #2 in the Star Series) to be released with a new, professionally edited version of The Burning Star. We’ll also be releasing Walk on the Striped Side (book #2 in the Big Bad Bite Series)! We’re very busy girls this year, but it’s all a work of love anyways!
Thank you for having us on your blog today Anna and readers! We enjoyed our visit and hope you’ll stop by our website to enjoy excerpts and playlists for the books!
Visit Jessie Lane at these social sites:
Thanks for stopping by, Melissa and Crystal! I wish you the best of luck in all your future projects.
March 19, 2013
Announcing New Author Interview of Jessie Lane
I’m so excited to announce the interview of Jessie Lane, author of The Burning Star and The Big Bad Bite, on my blog on Monday, March 25. Come read about how these sisters work together to write fun, action-packed paranormals.
March 18, 2013
It’s Almost Spring!
March 13, 2013
The Music I Write By
My all time favorite song “A Drop in the Ocean” by Ron Pope:
“Drunk on You” by Luke Bryan
“Skinny Love” by Bon Iver
A piano cover of “A Thousand Years” (originally by Christina Perri) by Nef Pagtakhan
The one song I think encompasses Holden Clark is “The Right Way” by Ron Pope, but I couldn’t share it. If you’ve never heard it, check it out. Every time he sings “I just want to live” it gives me goosebumps.
March 11, 2013
Community Bookstop 5 Star Review of Spell of Summoning
Click here for the original post.
Title: Spell of Summoning
Author: Anna Abner
Publisher: Mild Red Books
Pages: 275
Format: ebook
Source: Author Request Review
Description:
Holden Clark walks into Rebecca Powell’s life, a tall, blue-eyed stranger who stirs long forgotten desires. But nothing, including this man, is what it seems. A dark necromancer is targeting Becca for a full-blown demonic possession. She is thrust into a world she never knew existed—a world where dark casters create chaos and necromancers talk to the dead.
Holden has no faith in his power. A necromancer, he communicates with the dead, but he has never embraced his gifts. Now, he has no choice but to stop the dark caster attacking Rebecca, but accepting this mission means he’ll be delving into dangerous magics he’s never used before.
Under the protection of the damaged and mysterious Holden, Rebecca will question everything …
My Thoughts:
This book starts out dragging you into a world with magic and demons and spells attached to Rebecca Powell and it’s up to Holden to save her. While Rebecca is very resistant to this idea, all she knows about magic is about how it’s make believe and doesn’t exist when Holden shows up she assumes he’s some crazy stalker but there are things happening to her that she can’t explain or even fathom.
I loved this book so much it was a great paranormal adventure with many twists and turns letting you wonder who is putting a spell on Becca. I also loved the romance and watching Holden connect with Becca and the way he was able to set his Grams free. Awesome job Ms. Abner did telling this story!
March 5, 2013
Tuesday Tease #6
David’s kiss wasn’t anything like the fumbling, dry-mouthed kisses Cody Reynolds had plastered against her mouth in that closet ten years ago. Oh, no. David kissed like a guy who knew how to take his time.
Spell of Binding, ms pg. 108
February 26, 2013
Tuesday Tease #5
The man on his knees said one word, “Constringo.”
Fricking necromancers and their hard-ons for Latin. Regardless of the word’s definition, his spell hit Dani hard, burning from her fingertips to her elbows. A dark spider web tattoo crawled up both forearms.
“No.”
He’d bound her magic.
Spell of Binding, ms pg 17
February 25, 2013
Spell of Summoning 50% Off at Smashwords
Click here and save 50% at Smashwords.
Coupon code: TG29L
Be sure to turn your adult filter off first. 
February 20, 2013
Scene Cards
There are dozens of types of scene cards and twice as many ways to use them to improve your writing, either in pre-writing or in the editing stage. I took ideas from different sources and designed a scene card that suits my style perfectly. If you’re having trouble visualizing how each individual part of your story works together as a whole, try this.
Each scene gets its own card. Each POV (point of view) character gets his or her own color. Blue for my hero and pink for my heroine (to make it simple). Purple or green for my villain or any secondary character with their own POV. Then, because my novel, Spell of Summoning, is a paranormal romance I also wanted to track how often magic was used or how often a character communicated with a spirit. So I taped a yellow card behind any scene that had magic in it.
Now comes the time consuming part of this exercise. Starting from the beginning of your manuscript, read each scene and note the following details:
The chapter number / the scene number;
The date the scene takes place in the story;
The POV character;
A quick summarizing title for the scene;
The POV character’s goal in the scene;
The POV character’s motivation for that goal in this scene;
The conflict that keeps the POV character from reaching their scene goal;
The main characters’ clothing or hair style in this scene;
The setting.
Here is an example from Spell of Summoning:
This early scene contains an instance of the paranormal so it has a yellow card behind it.
I included notes on costume because I never want to forget my hero wore a charcoal gray suit and black tie in the morning and then pulled off a black suit and red tie at the end of the day. Keeping the information on my scene card makes it easier for me to track costumes through multiple scenes in multiple locations.
The GMC (Goal-Motivation-Conflict) on each card is simplified. In my more elaborate pre-writing notes I have written both external and internal GMC for each character in each scene, but the size of the card does not allow me to express all this. Instead, I jot down easy to remember notes that trigger in my head the more complex workings of my characters. However, even having to fill out a simplified GMC chart for each POV character was extremely rewarding.
For example, I got to one scene around the middle of the book that had no conflict at all. I had written a cute little scene where Rebecca is flinging witty dialogue at her receptionist as she marches through her office. When I tried to write her GMC I had quick answers for her goal and her motivation, but I couldn’t think of a single hint of conflict. To give the scene more punch I re-wrote it, took Rebecca’s employee out of the office, and added an awkward phone call, instead. After the re-write, Rebecca doesn’t get what she wants and a new layer is added to her overall arc.
If I hadn’t practiced this scene card exercise I might not have found that scene and I imagine anyone who read the original would have skimmed quickly over it to get to something more exciting.
Finally, because I’m a visual learner, I made space on my bedroom wall and taped each scene card under its chapter heading to see the whole story. Posting the scenes helped me see which characters were getting too much attention and which weren’t getting enough. Plus, I could see how often my villain popped up with his own POV and whether I was using too much or too little magic.
This is a note-taking and scene tracking system that worked for me, and I will use it again on the sequel, Spell of Binding. If I was very organized I would be able to write out scene cards before I started writing the manuscript and lay out every scene, every chapter, and every act exactly as it needs to be in the finished novel. But I’m not. Maybe that will be my next writing goal.
